Also, it presented a great place to bring up their kids. And access to the NBN was a benefit, too, he said. Part of Mr Hourigan's work involves trading for institutional clients, so being able to log on to the markets at night from home is a great asset.

"Working from home was a big component because I knew there would be times when that would need to happen," he said.

"It was more broad than that because prior to that I knew that it wasn't possible to watch movies, for example, and stream things online.

"Before the NBN, the connection was so slow that you wouldn't even try to download a movie.